Have we all retired?

Dude, I don't blog for a week and all I get is one lousy comment?! (Not that it was a lousy comment - Glad you're back, Stef! Coffee?) But the point is, ONE? One comment? What gives!?

Celebutation!

The man and I went to see Clerks II last night. I never really got into the first one - the acting was so bad that it distracted me from any potential comedy - but this one was pretty good! Stupid, sure, but Kevin Smith is tops when it comes to clever dialogue. The acting is still iffy (I'm talking to you, guy who plays Dante) but Rosario Dawson delivers a fine performance in a completely unbelievable plotline (and yes, Carters, she is indeed smokin') and I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Jason Mews, heroin habit be damned. (I hear he's clean now after a stint in rehab and a co-hab with Kevin Smith and his wife. That must've been some crazy house.)

Anyways, I've had this fucking song stuck in my head ever since the credits rolled - "Frustrated Incorporated" by Dave Pirnir's band. I wonder what happened to that guy? Not that I ever really cared for him (he looked very stinky and his hair tortured me) but he was a reasonably successful grunge rocker and as far as I know, hasn't made a peep since - not even as a "celebrity" judge or Surreal Life roomie. (Which, come to think of it, ups my respect significantly.) I always just wonder what former celebs do with their time once they're no longer working. It's not like the brother can grab a job stocking shelves at Home Depot (nor does he need to, all that money from "Runaway Train"). He was engaged to Winona Ryder for awhile - another AWOLer. I know she has another movie coming out but it's been, what, five years since Girl, Interrupted? I know she had that pesky shoplifting trial to contend with but as someone who knows what it's like to sit around waiting for the phone to ring, I can't imagine the frustration. Does Winona do her own grocery shopping? Does she fill her days bedding future rock stars and going to premiers? Did she get dropped by her agent? These are the things I want to know.

I also want to be a fly on the wall in the new Courtney Love/Billy Corgan household. They're living together now, did you know that? ("Disfunction Junction, how's that fuuuunction?") Man, I don't even want to know... Except that I really want to know.

HOUSEHUSBAND!

Tomorrow is the dawn of a new era in the McCody household. The era of the Househusband.

Today is Matt's last day at his suck-ass job. Let the beard growing, stained T-shirt sporting, lackadaisical hygiene having begin!

The power of a good voiceover

Yes, this is really stupid - but it'll still make you laugh.

And another thing...

Ah, catering. How I missed thee.

Spent a surprisingly unhorrific night at a certain famous auction house, peddling Pellegrino and burdensomely monikered hors d'oeuvres. ("Sliced sirloin with carmelized onion on chive buttermilk biscuits" comes to mind.) It was a small motivational meeting for the new girls, I guess - much chatter about developing relationships with galleries and the terror the cold calling - but what struck me was not their perfectly Prada'd outfits (auction girls look great) or their weight (00 is the new 0). It was their voices. Almost without exception, they all spoke in this questioning, Valley Girl-esque cadance.

"Soooo I just finished up at Harvard Law?"

"Yeah, I've been here for two years?"

"I got that account? Because Spanish is my native tongue?"

Do you know what I'm talking about? (I mean "about"?) Now I know for a fact that these women are highly intelligent. That said, if one of them was assigned to my case, there's no WAY I'd let them represent me in court. And it's not just the twenty-somethings! Some of the women in the room were clearly touching forty and they spoke the exact same way. I find it exceptionally irritating. (TALK IN YOUR REAL VOICE!)

I'm starting to sound like a Jeff Foxworthy joke. ("You know when you're a fogey when...")

I ate an entire package of Gummi Bears

Some quickies until I get my ass in gear and finish my latest audition story for you. (Gotta write a new one for the Cap-Journal too... Where does the time go...)

Saw "Prada" today. Meh. While I had serious issues with the book (main character boderline hateful, other characters tedious, subplots skippable) the stuff about She-Who-May-Be-Wintour is hardcore. This was clearly "Prada"-lite (was anyone scared of Meryl? Anyone?) which was okay summer fluff, but I kept wanting to shout, "WHERE'S THE DISH, BITCHES?" Borrow the book (I can't, in good conscience, give that Lauren chick any more cash), skim past the filler and focus on the horror show that was working for Wintour.

I'm currently plowing through "Kitchen Confidential". Not as juicy as I'd hoped, but good enough to make standing in the steaming cesspool of stink that is the summer subway somewhat - somewhat - bearable.

Next up - "Nanny Diaries". Don't say I ain't deep.

Saw Pirates II last night. Again, meh. Matt liked it more than I did, I think. I'd talk about a key scene but don't want to give too much away... Alls I'll say is this: If I was ever called upon to make out with Johnny Depp, I'd insist on staying stationary. Things like that require focus!

Bring me my pipe and slippers, while you're at it.

Hey, how've you been? Haven't talked in awhile.

Between the 7 am catsitting sessions, lugging the laptop to Baby's house, and some particularly exciting television nights, posting has slipped of my radar. I'll fix, I promise.

I have an exciting story to tell you all but it requires weekend time. In the meantime, THONGS. Why? Very awkward things, thongs. I had to wear one the other day and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to pull nonexistant underwear out of my ass. Very uncomfortable with shorts. (Men, try strapping on a dance belt for a day and you'll see what I mean.) Call me a prude but I like the comfort of a knowing there's a little protective sheathing between my bum and my clothing, you know? Plus I see women all the time walking around with VTL (that's "visible thong lines" for those in the know) and it's just as stupid looking - if not more so, unless the ass is fantastic, which we all know it seldom is - as VPL. Any woman who says they love wearing them? Sadist. Run.

I've had Tom Jones' "Sex Bomb" going through my head for the last hour and a half. It was only fun for about a minute of that.

So some idiot tried to blow himself up here in NYC and suceeded... mostly. He blew his house up, that's for damn sure. Rule number one for misguided suicide attempts (especially one that, should you live, would leave you subject to some serious prosecution): GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Matt has one more week of work and then it's All House Husband, All The Time! I'm not saying that I'm expecting him to greet me at the door with a glass of wine in one hand a hot meal in the other... I'm just saying.

Maybe Old Navy has some...

I've noticed that stores are racing to get my hard earned dollars earlier than ever lately. Halloween candy shows up around Labor Day, Chrismas music starts ringing around October and Easter hops into the arms of Valentine's Day.

Which is fine, except that the Gap is no longer selling summer clothes. Which is annoying as fuck when I need a pair of shorts.

This frustration isn't just about the shorts. (Although it's a lot about the shorts.) I feel they're rushing me through my summer. Not that I normally love summer in the city, what with the sweat and dirt and crowding and questionable deoderant usage, but this summer has been particularly mild and I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I see a pair of cords and start to get anxious. Because if there's one thing I know, it's this: After fall comes winter and I LOATHE WINTER. I feel all anxious and ootsy inside just thinking about it. Who's buying these clothes? Are there people sitting around in their shorts and flip flops going, "Gee, I sure could use a cowl-neck mohair sweater in a charming leaf print"?

You know what else bugs me? People who wear sweaters with shorts and flip flops. I've seen a few of them around lately. If it's chilly enough for a sweater, it's time to pull on some pants. Once I actually saw a guy in a pair of shorts, mandals (man sandals) and a puffy down jacket. Bothered me, bothered me, bothered me...

Sometimes I just can't resist the things I know I should:

- Anything free
- Bad television
- Picking at my skin when I'm nervous
- Skee Ball
- Half-price sales
- Furniture on the street
- Dogs dressed as Yoda

I feel barfy.

Why is the sun so damn bright?!

I did three things last night that I never, ever do:

1: I went out at 10:00 at night.
2: I consumed more than 2 drinks in one sitting.
3: My friends and I (I can't believe I'm typing this) closed the bar.

We closed the muthafucking bar, peeps! Granted it was at 1 am... but still! Two lousy little drunks (and one sober husband-of-drunk who footed the bill) sat and sat and talked trash and sat and boozed it up and sat long past my normal comfort zone. (Being a former waiter, I'm highly attuned to the subtle - and in this case, not so subtle - hints that I've overstayed my welcome.) But damn if it wasn't fun!

This morning, however, not so fun.

I'd write more but I keep tipping over.

Take that, AOHell!

We've all been there. You're trying to cancel something, be it a credit card or gym membership or particularly irritating relationship. Unfortunately the "customer service representative" has other plans. 50 minutes and 800 rounds of "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL?" later, you're ready to chew off somebody's face. "If only someone, somewhere, was recording this!"

Well, friends - this one's for you.

Cheers!

First and foremost, please wish a HAPPY WEDDING DAY TO STEFANIE AND MICHAEL!

Both are tremendously talented. Both are ridiculously attractive. Both contribute to this blog.

Have a wonderful, delicious, romantic, happy-filled, lovey-lovey wifey-hubby day you two. We expect to hear all about it.

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

We have another fish. That makes our total pet count at 4, which by some standards is probably pretty low. Still, 2 cats and 2 fish seems just a few steps too close to an accident waiting to happen. Along with Bill, we now welcome Joe.

What's that, geeky husband? Oh, right...

Along with Betta Ray Bill, we now welcome Salty Joe.

What have I married into?

I've never understood people that are convinced that their tiny pets have personalities. Cats and dogs, sure. Certain birds, even. (If they can talk, they count. They also scare me.) But rodents? (They eat their young!) Fish? (They... swim!) Not big in the brain department, if you get my drift.

That said, my fishies have personalities. Which, while adorable, kind of weirds me out.

Salty Joe is a grump. He's blue and has a craggy little face. Although no one can know how old a betta is, Joe has clearly done a few laps around the ol' swimming pond. He rests a lot. When he's not resting, he's puffing. That Joe is fishing for a fight! If a fish could sit on a front porch with a shotgun, it'd be Joe.

Betta Ray Bill is a perky little guy. He's bright red and very shiny. Bill wiggles. He swooshes. He dances and shimmies and gets really, really excited when he sees us. (Apparently bettas can distinguish between their owners and other people. How scientists tested that, I'll never know.) He almost never puffs (unless it's dark and he thinks we're a shark) and he rarely sleeps. (Do fish sleep? They have to, right?)

A quick interjection: Matt just stopped me from feeding the guys because I was about to feed Joe the wrong food. Was Joe sick? Did he need special, medicated food?

"He likes this food better."

HE'S PICKY?!

Fish don't get to be picky! Do fish even have taste buds? Matt just tried to convince me to feed Bill the "fancy" food but I put my foot down. One picky fish does not two picky fish make! We're not going down that path. Pretty soon it's "Why don't we feed the children filet mignon? They like it better!" Matt will not be in charge of feeding the kids, that's for damn sure.

Fish likes one food better. People please.

Anyway, all this personality-having and food-preferencing seems to indicate that perhaps fish are sentient. And if that's the case, how can I continue eating them? (Not that I eat them very often, what with all the mercury, but still.) There's been some recent debate about whether or not lobsters feel pain (chefs are now coming down on the side of "perhaps") and some chefs are now finding alternatives to boiling them alive. (I believe the new method is to use their uber-sharp chef knife to pierce their brain for instant, theoretically pain-free death.) I realize that feeling pain and being intelligent are two different things but... where was I going with this?

Anyway, two fish now.

Go, unbalanced gay boy, go!

Sometimes I hear people say stuff on the teevee (usually the reality kind) that I so, so, SO want to claim as my own. Case in point: So You Think You Can Dance. Lately they've been filling time with the standard "embarrassing audition" footage that William Hung made so famous. I like that stuff all right but after the seventh round of predictable belittling it gets a touch old.

Until this dude showed up.

Two words: Flaming. Mink. Dude was as fabulous as fabulous could be, strolling onstage with a stole tossed over his dance clothes. With an entrance like that, he had me at "Where can I hang my mink?" Then he danced. Seeing as how we were watching the Worst Of part of the evening it was, of course, awful.

But then - but then! The judges proceeded to rain on his parade and he FREAKED! Freaked as only a dancing queen with a ratty mink can freak! He was so mad I think I saw spittle! How dare they tell him he can't dance! How dare they!

"I EXUBERATED FANTASTICISMS!"

I think I saw stars, it was so beautiful. "I exuberated fantasticisms!" Feel it in your mouth. It's good, right? I desperately, desperately want to add this to my arsenal but I'm afraid. Afraid I'll get so used to it that I'll forget that I saw it on national television and use it in my writing and it'll turn into a whole big fiasco like what's-her-name "I went to Harvard" with the plagerism and I don't want none of that.

What's the time limit on intellectual property? Or more to the point, when can I have that sentence? Please tell me I can have that sentence. My world needs that sentence.

See Matt Type.

I should also mention that the husband has two, count 'em, two new blogs. Don't bother pointing out that he doesn't update the original blog nearly enough for some people's liking (and by "some people" we alllll know I mean "me") . Nonetheless, check them out. They're good, and I'm not just saying that because I sleep with him.

www.tippitytaptap.blogspot.com
www.apoliticalposture.blogspot.com

Anybody got anyone?

Just throwing it out there, but if anyone knows someone who does affordable web design (I'm talking really affordable. "Coin jar" affordable) I'd love the skinny. According to everybody, it's not enough to have $1000 color headshots and color postcards and do constant mailings and pay money to meet casting directors subscribe to Backstage and spend $800 on a gym membership and post your picture on IMDB and put your info in Player's Guide. Now you have to have a motherfreaking website.

Hear that? That's the sound of me throttling my creative muse.

But a website I need so a website I will have. I figure I can use it for my writing and card making stuff too. It's pricey though. Between the crap listed above and the sale racks at Banana, money is tight. In the meantime, I might start a separate blog for my acting stuff. All the cool kids are multi-blogging these days and I am nothing if not cool...

Gossipista!

So apparently, Hilary Swank left Chad Lowe because of his "substance abuse" problems.

Huh.

I don't know which bothers me more: the thought of sweet Jesse "I may have HIV but Becca still loves me" McKenna doing blow off some hooker's ass or the fact that Hilary "I still love my husband, I swear" Swank felt the need to release a statement about it. She says he's clean now, so why the tattling? Not so much with the classy, miss Swank.

He was probably just hooked on something lame like Oxycontin or whatever it is that the Matthew Perrys of the world always end up in rehab for. Sleeping pills? Pain meds? Why can't celebs just take a Tylenol PM like the rest of us schlubs and move on?

I could be Batman. Except for all the pushups.

Hope you all had a smashing celebration yesterday. We kept our love for America on the DL, as it were. Bought some organic hotdogs (expensive... so expensive) and corn on the cob and ate the cookies from fancypants Bouley Bakery that I picked up after my run in Central Park. (Bottle of water in one hand, bag of cookies in the other. We won't discuss it.)

Didn't see any damn fireworks! Usually we can watch the ones from Jersey (we can't see the Macy's show - they're on the other side of the island) but either they didn't set them off this year or it was a really good part in Batman Begins and we missed them. Someone needs to help me out with Katie (excuse me, "Kate") Holmes. Why is she famous, exactly? Aside from the whole hooking-up-with-a-nutter extravaganza? She's embarrassing in this movie (are there no young starlets that can play tough cookies? I had the same issue with Kate Bosworth in Superman) and her apparent hotness is lost on me. I mean if you can't create chemistry with Christian "Check Out My Chest" Bale... Woof.

Anyway, how was your holiday?

I missed you.

That's right friends - I'm back from Ft. Lauderdale! Home of sea turtles, surprisingly average seafood and folks with serious amounts of sun damage. It's also home to a little body of water I like to call "El Océano Atlántico". That pretty lady tried to drag me into the deep a couple of times and dad's wife may have had to help me back onto the beach because the water rendered me temporarily blind (IT GOT IN MY EYES! AND THERE WASN'T A TOWEL!) but I couldn't get enough of it. I got up at 6 am every morning so I could get my fill before the heat set in (it was like sitting in a sauna for 3 days straight). It's sea turtle season and every morning I'd watch the local marine biology grad students come to the beach and check the sea turtle nests for hatchlings. Did you know:

- That mama turtles bury their eggs in the sand several feet deep and the babies have to dig their way out and then trudge across the beach, dodging hungry sea gulls, vicious red ants and cooing humans to make it to the water? (I have pics. A-dor-a-ble.)
- Baby sea turtles are super cute?
- That all the development along the waterfront is causing a severe decline in the sea turtle population because the baby's instinct is to crawl to the brightest horizon (usually the sea, because of the light from the moon on the water) but since condos tend to leave lights on, they'll crawl toward the housing and die?
- Baby sea turtles are super cute?
- That only 1 in 1,000 make it to maturity?
- That baby sea turtles are super cute? (But don't take them home, no matter how much you really, really, reallyreallyreally want to.)
- That leatherback turtles are the size of a Volkswagon Beetle?

I even got to watch one hatch. It tried to waddle its way to the sea but one of its flippers was a little weak and it kept getting washed back ashore so they had to take it back with them. (Cute. cuuuute.)

I saw some alligator wrestling. I don't so much recommend.

Floridians like their yachts and excessive displays of wealth. I saw one home that had a yacht and two sailboats docked in front. (Overcompensate much?) Guess what it costs to fill the tank of an average sized yacht?

$60,000.

I'll let you process that for a moment.

I saw two rainbows and ate my weight in pancakes and Key Lime Pie. Had wine and margaritas every day. Lemme tell ya, going from my fairly spartan diet to one filled with pancakes and pie, combined with the awkwardness of sharing a rather smallish room with a virtual stranger, made things... um... let's just say that it sent my system into a tailspin and leave it at that.

All in all, a fine time had by me. I miss the sea. Still, it's good to be home.